When only two ways to go. The law of excluded middle: x is or is not the case. As in, Shannon descended the sun or Shannon thrown open the trap like a minaret. Two mice in constant panic, the same as two mice. Being unforgivable Shannon removes her dark glasses, dark in here, sunless, night. Post-op mice spinning wheels like thinking, how many rotations per light bulb? Energy from spinning, energy from splitting or sticking together— to cleave—Shannon bent like a backdrop. One mouse per fist a live performance: Stage right, stage left, two curtains closing. Shannon squeaks cagey, licks a wet metal ball. Or Shannon gloved, needles and drugs. Smiling teeth bright under red lights, Shannon decapitated by curtain, head rolling her left or mine.

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SPLITTING THE FINITE

Sometimes I welcome the apocalypse. One last bright flash like a camera before the universal redeye. With me a mosquito could learn to clip his own wings, dress in silks and pop a top hat as if his many prism eyes alternated black and white, real and fake, and he lived in both worlds which explains the legs, all the little redundancies of a split life. I have two bodies: the one you see and the one you do not see. One I use for buying groceries, the other for eating them. My private body likes to play with light, it reflects itself like photons are balls and I'm all I need for catch. My secret body likes to attend plays, peep shows, it is the one that starts all those erections. It rides the bus by the motor. Once my other body was sleeping in bed and my private body crept close. Its lips touched my dormant ear and whispered the three words of separation.

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These poems were written several years apart. "Splitting the Finite" is the older one. Around the time I wrote it, I was involved with a scientist named Shannon who worked with rodents (the furry kind). But "exeunt omnes" has nothing to do with her. Sorry Shannon. It's actually about my friend Cheryl, whose name was changed to protect her from the poem. Sorry Cheryl.